Effect Of Controllable Parameters On Rock Fragmentation At Imerys Mineral (M) Sdn Bhd

Blast design plays crucial part on rock fragmentation. Rock fragmentation should be taken into account in blasting as it affects the subsequence operations such as grinding and crushing. Bad result in blasting will lead to expensive cost and waste of energy. The focus of this study is to investigate the impact of blast design parameters on the rock fragmentation. The goal of efficient blasting can be achieved by investigating the relationship between blast design parameters and fragmentation. The study is carried out at Imerys Mineral Sdn Bhd quarry. The field study takes 2 weeks to acquire muck pile images, blasted samples and blast record. There are two phases that are done for this study. First, field study is done at the quarry such as geological mapping, blast monitoring and grab sampling. Second phase, experimental work such as physical test and analysis are carried out at laboratory. Under the present study a size distribution of blasted limestone quarry is carried out using the Wipfrag image processing software with acquired digital images. Image processing of the data shows that, the mean fragments size of each blast event is good and have fair distribution. The results of physical test showing that the limestone is in soft rock category. A few factors affect the geology of rock and resulting influence the strength of rock. Uniaxial compressive strength has high correlation with mean fragment size, means that mean fragment size will become finer with increase in powder factor